Category Archives: From My Kitchen

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Thanksgiving is a big deal in our family. It is usually hosted by my mother who typically plans the menu which is always very traditional and always ends with the pumpkin pie. Not apple, not French silk, but pumpkin. Don’t mess with the pumpkin pie ~ and I’m always asked to bring it. That being said, there are times when I’ve wanted to give a nod to the pumpkin but shake things up a bit just for kicks. Here are a few things I have found to be different, while keeping well within the pumpkin pie theme…

Share Welcome to Kettle Klatches! Homestead Conversations with Carol (from Everything Home With Carol) and Jenny (myself ). Recently my friend and fellow-homesteader Carol Alexander and I got together to chat on the phone about our homesteading ventures. We … Continue reading →

Share Welcome to Kettle Klatches! Homestead Conversations with Carol (from Everything Home With Carol) and Jenny (myself ). Recently my friend and fellow-homesteader Carol Alexander and I got together to chat on the phone about our homesteading ventures. We … Continue reading →

After a gardening break over the summer, Carol Alexander and I, are back in the saddle and back with another episode of Kettle Klatches!. In this session we talk about preserving your soup garden by canning, freezing, and dehydrating your home grown herbs and vegetables.

While I still have garlic to plant and sweet potatoes to harvest, our summer gardening season is coming to an end. One of the first crops to finish, of course was the tomatoes. In an effort to waste as little as possible I spent last Saturday afternoon gathering up the green tomatoes, some of which will become spicy green tomato pickles.

Join us as we present our second post in an audio blog series “The Art of Soup Making”. In this installment, How to Make a Pot of Stock, we talk about the importance of making your own stock, share some interesting ingredients, and take you through the process step by step. We’d like to invite you to pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of tea, and listen in!

Join us as we present our first post in an audio blog series about all things homesteading from food, to living on a budget, to gardening, and more. Our first in this series is called “The Art of Soup Making” and in our first installment, Planting a Soup Garden, we talk about how you can plant easy to grow crops for a great pot of soup that will stretch your family’s budget. We’d like to invite you to pull up a chair, pour yourself a cup of tea, and listen in!

This post isn’t really a tutorial as much as it is my thoughts on our first experience creating a sourdough starter from spelt and sharing with you some resources that I have found to be helpful. I am not a sourdough queen. I am still learning and working my way through new recipes, adjusting favorite recipes, and learning from my mistakes.

Do you often find yourself in the following predicament: in the kitchen at 8pm after a hard day of gardening, your family needs dinner, but you don’t nave enough energy even to prepare peanut butter crackers; let alone something healthy and nourishing? Do you find this predicament to be frustrating in light of the fact that your efforts to grow your own food often leave you without the energy to prepare and preserve it? Read on about Homestead Cooking with Carol, a fabulous new resource to help you in your homestead kitchen.

My grandfather was born in England, the son of a coal miner. When he was four, he immigrated with his parents and siblings to the United States in search of a better life. One of the things they brought over with them was the very British tradition of tea and scones.

Monday night in our home is soup night. I make a pot big enough for one dinner followed by enough leftovers to get us through at least half of the week. Not only does this give us an inexpensive meal, but it eliminates the need to buy expensive lunch food items such as lunch meat which isn’t always very healthy anyway.

Apart from bone broth mirepoix is, in my opinion, one of the secrets to a great pot of soup (among other lovely things). Although I have been cooking for years, I am embarrassed to say that I did not know what mirepoix was until just a few years ago.

No visit to my Grandma’s was complete without this simple comfort food. She would begin preparing it early in the day, layering the ribs and the homemade kraut in the same vintage dutch oven. It would simmer all day long on the back of the stove to be served in the evening over mashed potatoes and accompanied by a side of her homemade applesauce. For dessert there would be one of her pies, usually rhubarb but sometimes blueberry; made from local fruit, the crust flaky by the lard she used. The full recipe and instructions are being shared today over at Gnowfglins. Click here to read more….